Portion B'midbar
"Count the head of the whole Israelite community for families and to their fathers…" (1, 2)
Portion Bamidbar is always be read before the Shavuot holiday, Of course, subjects in this chapter are a preparation for Matan Torah. This is especially the chapter Bamidbar about counting the people of Israel, which made all the Chumash Bamidbar called: "subordinate Chumash".
What's the matter of the count?
Midrash explains that the counting the children of Israel the reason is their importance: "Israel likened to a pile of wheat. Like a warehouse are counted incoming wheat, God said that Israel will be counted at any time".
Wheat is important and expensive of its owner, so an owner's wheat counts his goods, to know exactly how much wheat has. However, G-od does not need counting; he knows what the exact number of the children of Israel, even without counting them, so why G-od commands to count the Israelites?
Jewish law states that "everything count, not cancel", Count the children of Israel make them not to be cancel. Jewish people is surrounded by nations of the world, "like sheep among seventy wolves", and it may be lost among the nations. Therefore, God commands to count the Israelites, to the people of Israel did not cancel.
The count came to express the importance of Israel by the action that the physical world can see and feel it. The novelty of the Torah is the connection between the top and bottom, between the spiritual and materialism.
Commandments fulfilled before Matan Torah on physical objects, the objects do not become holy. For example: if Abraham put on Tefillin made from animal's leather is able to throw them away, the animal's leather did not receive holy. Only from the giving of the Torah the people of Israel can make the physical world holy. Therefore, since the giving of the Torah, every object we made a mitzvah with it becomes a holy Such as Tefillin, Lulav, etc.
This relationship this chapter to Shavuot - Festival of the Giving of the Torah, that by counting the people of Israel they become important and they have the power makes the world a holy, this is the purpose of giving of the Torah.
